distance

There was no snow in the forecast, a good time for a visit with two important-to-me women in King of Prussia, PA. I drove down on Monday, heading home again today. The first time I drove from home I followed directions (and GPS) on my phone. That took me through Connecticut into the edge of New York and across the George Washington Bridge. I am not a city gal, and I didn't like that route. I've never repeated it, finding better but longer roads.

I've been fine-tuning the route. I discovered I-287 connecting the NJ Turnpike and the NY Thruway on my first return trip. That works nicely. Since then I've been fine-tuning my route between the northwestern corner of Suffern, NY and Sturbridge, MA.

The shorter of two routes that I've used travels on I-84 from Sturbridge to the NY Thruway. That's a bit of an odd road though. The piece from Sturbridge to Hartford behaves like a limited access road, but beyond there it isn't as nice. It's a main road through several cities, and worse than that there are sections where roads come in from the right and then split off to the left.

The longer route from a distance standpoint only takes a little more time. Today I stayed on I-87 until it intersected with I-90 eastbound. From monkeying with mapping software it appears this route is 50+ miles longer - but it only took about 10 minutes more to travel between Suffern and Sturbridge today than it did on my trip down. While the two roads are only two lanes in each direction, it's a much more comfortable drive. The speed was consistent and faster than the shorter road.

I think I'll stick to the longer route in the future unless snow convinces me to go with the southern route.